Knowledge Itself
by Shelly Campbell and Megan King
After solar flares wipe out electrical grids worldwide, a small community survives by selling data recovered from decrepit hard drives and rare books. Nostalgic for the days of big business, the commune’s founding members call themselves Corporate and micromanage everyone.
Raised into the hustle, Iris Ecosia’s ADHD brain rebels at Corporate’s strict structure. It’s not all bad though. She attracts the attention of Robert Lycos, the son of one of the Shareholders, but their relationship comes to a crashing end when she loses focus at a critical moment and a vital piece of equipment is destroyed.
The mistake plunges her into debt. Corporate demotes her to an indentured gardener. Her romance with Robert dissolves. Worse, there are no paid sick days in the post apocalypse. So when Iris’s whole family falls ill, starvation is soon knocking on their door. Meanwhile, the Shareholders live like tycoons.
Iris and her family are not alone in their poverty or their impotent rage at the corporation who keeps them poor, hungry, and dependent. An underground revolution intent on toppling Corporate wants to recruit her. She can still do big things if she joins them, but if she’s caught, the Shareholders won’t stop at destroying her. They’ll go after her family too.
Testimonials
“With visceral prose, heart-aching emotion, and positive neurodiverse rep, Campbell and King paint an immersive post-apocalyptic world with characters you’ll want to root for.” – Al Hess author of World Running Down
About the Author: Shelly Campbell and Megan King
At a young age, Shelly Campbell wanted to be an air show pilot or a pirate, possibly a dragon and definitely a writer and artist. She’s piloted a Cessna 172 through spins and stalls and sailed up the east coast on a tall ship barque—mostly without projectile vomiting. In the end, Shelly found writing fantasy and drawing dragons to be so much easier on the stomach. Shelly’s grimdark fantasy novel, UNDER THE LESSER MOON, was published by Mythos and Ink November 2020, and its sequel, VOICE OF THE BANISHED, will be hitting shelves in March 2022. She also has a quiet horror novel, GULF, which released in April 2021 with Silver Shamrock publishing, and has co-authored MAKING MYTHS AND MAGIC with Allison Alexander. It’s a field guide to writing sci-fi and fantasy with Mythos and Ink publishing.
Megan King has been a singer, dancer, artist, and most recently, an author, where she fills her time turning weird dreams into story ideas. She supports her arts habit by working as an optician. In her spare time, she listens to Canadian alt rock music pretty constantly and spends time with her family, which includes two dogs and a very large cat.